Check List 19(4): 589-597, doi: 10.15560/19.4.589
The hitchhiker’s guide to Australia: the 18,000-km-long journey of Alepia viatrix Jaume-Schinkel, Kvifte, Weele & Mengual, 2022 (Diptera, Psychodidae) discovered through citizen science
expand article infoSantiago Jaume-Schinkel‡, Ximo Mengual‡, Andy G. Howe§, Erinn P. Fagan-Jeffries|
‡ Museum Koenig, Leibniz-Institut zur Analyse des Biodiversitätswandels, Bonn, Germany§ University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, Australia| The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

Corresponding author: Santiago Jaume-Schinkel ( s.jaume@leibniz-zfmk.de )

Academic editor: Alessandre Pereira-Colavite
© Santiago Jaume-Schinkel, Ximo Mengual, Andy G. Howe, Erinn P. Fagan-Jeffries.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Jaume-Schinkel S, Mengual X, Howe AG, Fagan-Jeffries EP (2023) The hitchhiker’s guide to Australia: the 18,000-km-long journey of Alepia viatrix Jaume-Schinkel, Kvifte, Weele & Mengual, 2022 (Diptera, Psychodidae) discovered through citizen science. Check List 19(4): 589-597. https://doi.org/10.15560/19.4.589
Open Access
Abstract

The Neotropical genus Alepia Enderlein, 1937 (Diptera, Psychodidae) is newly recorded in Australia. We present new geographical records for Alepia viatrix Jaume-Schinkel, Kvifte, Weele & Mengual, 2022, extending the range of this species by 18,000 km. We attribute these new Australian records to the likely unintentional introduction of A. viatrix through international bromeliad trade. This moth fly was found by school children working with insect taxonomists through an Australian citizen-science project, Insect Investigators. We describe and present for the first time high-resolution SEM pictures of the eggs of the genus Alepia.

Keywords
Moth flies, introduced species, dark taxa, DNA barcoding, taxonomy, new distribution, new record, community science, school project